Elijah held his organic arm, bruised and battered from dodging and rolling around in the numerous firefights he had gone through. God be damned if a single shootout at his age was a good idea; he had pushed through four separate groups of insurgents on his way to the bridge of the ship. First Spoke was the same size as the other Spoke ships, and trawling through its winding guts did little to help Elijah’s aching joints. Even if his legs weren’t blown off in the next firefight he was considering getting them replaced. Step by step, he made his way, prowling like a great beast. His cape had become a tattered mane, his eyes scanning the dark for his prey. With great anticipation, he continued to thumb the hammer of his gun over and over, preparing to unleash hell on the next clan warrior he saw.

  Elijah hoped it would be one of the stupid ones, the ones who thought hacking an opponent to bits with machetes and clubs made you more honourable than blowing their brains out with a hollow point. Their motives mattered not to the grizzled deck manager, only that they made much easier targets. Much to his chagrin, many of the Cambiar on the ship had relatively little contact with humans, and some stood like dodos as they were butchered. He wondered how Fifth Spoke was doing, as it had become something of the central point that most humans and the important Cambiar had centred themselves at. Thankfully, a few of the moronic aliens on his current ship had realized that not all humans were sunshine and rainbows, and had actually decided to fight back, some with surprising skill and horrible emotional detachment. One had calmly decapitated a soldier and waved with the now severed head at Elijah as if it were a Christmas present.

  Such actions reinforced his lack of trust of the creatures, and considering the lack of response from the fleet in general so far, he felt justified in his suspicions. Still, it would do little to help him if he waved his gun at every four-legged creature he saw, and instead continued towards his target. Reaching an extra thick bulkhead leading to the bridge, knees aching like hell after climbing far too many stairs, he slammed the intercom.

  “This is Deck Manager Elijah Meyer, requesting access to the bridge. We have urgent matters you alien frea-…” Elijah’s anger took hold of him for a second too long. Coughing, he repeated himself. “We have matters regarding human lives, all our lives at stake here, so let me in!”

  A tense second passed with no response. Then, the door separated apart, the entrance splitting to revealing it had been made up grey hair-like filaments compacted together like baleen. Inside, the fleshy black-green consoles and surfaces played with his senses. It was dark, much like when he first arrived on Fifth Spoke. It would seem the aliens were happy to retrofit every part of their ship aside from the one spot humans didn’t need to see on a daily basis. Flicking his shoulder-mounted flashlight on, he initially saw no signs of life. When a Cambiar stood up inches from his gun’s barrel it took all his training not to blow its head off.

  Elijah shouted, “Fucks sake! Don’t scare me you stupid xeno!”

  The expressionless Cambiar shook slightly, perhaps in fear or excitement as it held its arms up in surrender. Around the room, several more stood up, each staring at him with their dozens of unblinking black marbles.

  Elijah lowered the weapon, grunting, “I’m not here to kill you. Unlike the rest of these traitors, I don’t kill on sight. Usually.”

  “Apologies, Deck Manager,” The alien said, relaxing. “We could not confirm your affiliation.”

  “Then why the hell did you let me in?”

  “You told me to,” It said plainly, like any other option was incomprehensible.

  Christ almighty these things were going to be the death of him. He marched over to a gangly looking one, shaded in a sickly yellow as the lights slowly lit up around them. Beyond the window, Elijah had seen a variety of ships strewn across the nearby space. Lighthouse stood proud, flying Doctrine insignia and currently sitting with its nose rammed into Fifth Spoke. The ship had been adapted to deploy troops from the intersecting point, based on the shoddy retrofitting along its hull. Elijah couldn’t even imagine how many soldiers could already be pouring into the ship, killing all the men and women the manager had tried to teach over the years.

  Elijah pointed, “You. Tall one. Why the hell are you not firing at that enemy ship?” It took all the man’s strength not to shout the question at the dumbfounded alien.

  “Apologies, sir. But we have clear orders not to intervene until absolutely necessary. Protocol declared that the only situation where this is approved is if we are personally fired upon. As per the orders of Rexia Zeentach, we cannot fire upon or board any vessels undergoing human-on-human conflict.”

  “And what about the rest of you bastards down below who have actually have enough balls to fight back?”

  “They are… abnormal. Evolved. Beyond what is considered typically ‘Cambiar’. But that is good. It shows we are learning. They can choose to intervene, if they wish.” The damned thing faintly smiled. Elijah wanted to break its long head open.

  “Well, for the love of god, open up a communications line to this Zeentach. I need to speak to him.”

  “I would be more than happy to assist you sir, but the Onusian ‘Jeff’ over there had decided as part of learning human experiences that he would take apart the transmission terminal.”

  “Why?!” Eljiah screamed, the gun alluring in his hand.

  “He says he is training to become a human ‘mechanic’. Isn’t that great!” The Cambiar widened its jaw into a dumb, open-mouthed grin that, had it not been anything but idiotically na?ve, Elijah would have been tempted to unload his gun on all the nearby evolutionary dead-ends in an instant.

  Ordering the computer to be put back together, Elijah slumped in a lumpy, writhing chair that extended from the floor. Rubbing his forehead, he groaned. This was going to be a rough day.

  Salvador had done a lot better than he had anticipated. He laid on the floor behind the store’s counter. Blood soaked through his clothes, the shrapnel getting the better of him. By his count, he must have dropped at least ten Paradisians, though he was humble enough to admit that it was almost entirely due to their slow, lumbering approach indifferent of the danger of death. Blood slick on his hands, he failed to load his pistol once again. Limply he dropped the magazine to the floor, the container landing with a clatter. It didn’t help that he’d caught two stray shots – one from firing over the counter and another when switches aisles for cover. He was down the bottom half of his right hand, leaving bone sticking out from the muscle, and a close shave from a slug had skimmed his face, tearing flesh from his cheek away, and shredding his ear. Using the two fingers and thumb left on his dominant hand, he could brush against most of his teeth on the right side, even when trying to close his jaw.

  Sal hadn’t anticipated dying in the back of a hardware store on an alien ship, but life wasn’t always fair, he rationalized to himself. Still, better than throwing himself into space, that much was certain. Footsteps approaching, he braced for the end. He reflected on Xeena, remembering her happy expressions from their time spent together. He held the bright faces of the Torchers in his mind, Dusty’s birthday springing to memory. But most of all, Sal thought on whether his father would approve, a silly thought considering the man was over a decade and a half gone. Pitifully, Sal hoped his father would say he had tried his best. He missed his father’s coat.

  As the footsteps stopped, and beginning to feel woozy from the blood loss, Sal lazily looked up to see three Paradisians staring down at him. He expected them to kill him on sight, but instead they surveyed him. One at the back, face hidden by a hood, scratched his temple as the others looked down on him.

  “Fuck you,” Sal mumbled out. Not exactly Shakespeare, but he didn’t have much energy left to think with.

  “He fought well. Are all outsiders like this?” One said, a younger looking man, face fully clean shaven of hair.

  “Perhaps. We saw many fake lives whilst biding our time. This man could just as well be one of the billions out there lacking a soul, just pretending.” This one was slightly older, though his eyes held the same unblinking look. As he finished talking, he raised a rifle he had slung under an arm.

  The younger one said, “Well, it of my opinion that Er-“

  A pair of gunshots, so quick they sounded like one, roared from an un-Paradisian styled revolver held by the rearmost, hooded figure. The two Paradisians dropped to the ground, heads mangled into pulp by the force of the shots. Sal flinched, some of his senses regained. The remaining figure walked closer, stepping over the corpses before crouching down.

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  “Look at the state of you, Sal. I’m rather proud. Were it up to me, I’d give you a medal back home. Didn’t think you had the guts of a fighter in you.” An unfamiliar voice said in a tone that would be taunting if Sal couldn’t see him nodding approvingly. The way he surveyed his injuries seemed sincere, as if the man was looking at a beautiful piece of art.

  Leaning even closer, a pair of eyes appraised his very soul. Black on black, they lacked pupils or iris, reminding Sal of the eyes of a fish. Dead eyes, eyes that never blinked or unfocused. Strings of long, white hair hung across his face, silvery locks that unnaturally glinted even in the darkness of the store. Lunging forward, a hand stretched out and ripped the shrapnel from his side.

  A howl of agony escaped Sal, the pain forcing him back into reality proper.

  “You son of a bitch! I’ll kill you!” Sal clenched a fist, preparing to try and strike back with what little strength he had.

  “I doubt that, Sal. You of all people know I’ve got some skills with handling your body.”

  What? Was this man delusional and mistaking him for someone else? How did he know his name? Tossing the twisted metal to the side, the dead-eyed man took out a syringe, twirled on a finger, and plunged it into the open wound. The twinkling azure within the ampule contained white fragments that drained into Sal as the needle dug at his insides. Air rushed from Sal’s chest as an icy feeling spread out from the injection site. In seconds, the pain faltered and puttered out, like a candle snuffed. Without waiting, the man grabbed Sal’s arm and dragged him out of the store, smearing a trail of blood, both his own and the Paradisians, across the floor as he was hauled through puddles of viscera.

  Being placed down in the centre of the hallway, Sal felt his muscles were numb. Yet, he still found the strength to look down at his injury. Below the tattered remains of his jacket, he could see the open wound where debris had jutted from his side not half a minute before closing in on itself, flesh knitting closed. The rate of blood leaking from the site had slowed, leaving a nasty gash but far from the increasingly fatal injury it had become.

  “What the hell?” Sal gingerly touched the wound, the pain dulled.

  “Cheer up, Sal. That stuff’s expensive, so you should be glad I’m spending it on you. That being said, it’s coming out of the Doctrine’s paycheck, and frankly I don’t care if it costs them anymore.”

  “Who are you?” Sal tried to climb to his knees and failed. “Are you a clan warrior? Do you know me?”

  The figure had been fiddling with a control panel and heaved a breaker switch to return the blinking orange lights back to a healthy white. Holding the position, he looked towards Sal, teeth reflecting like diamonds. Rocking his head back, the robes fell, revealing his unfamiliar face. Sharp outlines belied a young face, likely younger than Sal. Despite the man’s youth, his eyes held signs of rough life. A pair of scars under each eye, a cleft mark through an eyebrow, the signs of previous conflict were clear. Below the robes, the man wore a black bodysuit, blue wires coursing beneath the surface. Attached to his hips were a holster, and a boxy mechanical sheath for a sword. Along the skin beneath his face and hands, Sal could make out cybernetics, twitching and eager for action. The ones along what little of his forearms could be seen were familiar in a way.

  Sighing, as if disappointed Sal didn’t recognise him instantly, he reapproached Salvador and dropped to a knee. Sal wasn’t sure if he should try to attack the strange man or thank him, but the deadness in his limbs left him without a choice.

  “Come on Sal, let’s not be coy.” He cleared his throat, an obvious edge of excitement to it. “Tick, tock. Tick, tock.” He tilted his head. “Cuckoo.”

  It hit Sal like a cargo freighter.

  “Michaels?”

  “Bingo! If I had my personal fighter ship on me, I’d give you the activation codes as a reward.”

  “Who… are you, really?” Sal gaped like an idiot. This traitor had been with Sal for months now, and Sal hadn’t noticed. Though, in hindsight, he supposed some signs were there: his knowledge of mechanized armour from Ruby Eye’s cargo, his strange admiration with Cambiar that seemed to go beyond a mild interest and Thomas’ recounting of his gore-filled S-Jump vision certainly made more sense now.

  With an exaggerated bow, he gleefully said, “Mikhail Olegovich, third in line to the Broken Fang, at your service. Though, after I’m done, likely Mikhail of Ten-Tri from here on out.”

  “W-what?” None of this was making sense. Michaels had been ‘One-Shot’ Olegovich? The Ten-Tri? What the fuck was going on?

  “Ah, dear Sal, I can see you’re confused. Do you mind if we walk and talk? I’m rather excited to get moving.” Without waiting for an answer, Mikhail heaved Sal over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, Sal’s uninjured side placed behind his head. Mikhail showed no sign of strain or even exertion as he calmly walked through the halls of Fifth Spoke, swinging his Hullbuster revolver in one hand and supporting Sal with the other. Occasionally, the sheath of a long sword, the container made of advanced sheeting and components, bounced against his leg. Writing on the metal container spelt out ‘CASSARIA’ in blood red font.

  The long silver hair brushed against Sal stomach as he continued. “Apologies about the hand and face, the nano-serum won’t fix those up, too far from the injection spot. You’ll have to see if the Cambiar are good at plastic surgery. God knows they didn’t spot my little adjustments.”

  “How… how long?”

  “Hmm? Oh, me? I’ve always been part of the crew, always here.”

  “But, what about Michaels, the one on the crew manifest? Did you kill him?”

  “Heh, you wish. A completely falsified identity. I couldn’t live knowing I was stepping into someone else’s shoes. You’d be surprised how shoddy H&H’s background checks are. Well, you might have been surprised if a couple thousand of them didn’t turn out to be traitors. I think their security department is going to have some major layoffs this financial year. That, and their IT department. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was to spread pornography to all the Cambiar ‘Must Read’ data archives. That was amazing watching them see it for the first time.”

  Despite the swarm of questions buzzing in Sal’s head, a few stuck out.

  “Why are you doing this? What’s going on? What do the Ten-Tri have to do with this?”

  “Ah, that’s quite the number of enquiries, wouldn’t you say my dear engineer? Because I’m in a great mood, since I got to kill a couple hundred of those robed lobotomites and will probably deal with even more clansmen, I’ll tell you. I’m on a schedule, but for you buddy, I’ve got time.”

  A few… hundred? What sort of monster was Mikhail? Were the legends about the princeling true in some way?

  “So, first things first – ‘what’s going on?’. That’s a big question but can be summed up rather quickly. Josiah Dexter - the rapacious H&H weakling wants new land, made bad deals with the lesser clans to get extra firepower to protect any new colony he starts, and got infiltrated by everyone in the galaxy it seems. I think H&H is not long for the world, regardless of how things go here. The Jade Emperor, fuck his rotten corpse, has been rather naughty. He’s known about the Cambiar for a while.”

  “The translators…”

  “Exactly! I knew you were smart. Sounds like he sent a probe into their space some years back and has chatted with them ever since. He’d convinced a handful of the Ten-Tri to ally with the Doctrine a few years back – great minds thinking alike and all that. However, the bastard is now scared shitless. I guess he didn’t know how many Cambiar there are, big blunder on his part, and now wants them dead. He’s too scared to deal with another serious opponent after all the trouble he’s had with Paradise. That, and his ego is as big as the galaxy. In the end, he just shot himself in the foot.”

  Mikhail paused, thinking, “As for Paradise… I’m still fuzzy on them. They planted the bombs, but not sure why. Trying to get sympathy from the Cambiar to position themselves as refugees? Who knows, they don’t have fully working brains, so their logic is all over the place.”

  “What… what about you? Why save me?”

  Mikhail looked over his shoulder, feigning hurt in his voice.

  “Sal, how could you say that. I thought we had something. Didn’t you like it when I did your checkups, placed my hand on your chest, felt your beating heart?” He winked, causing Sal to lurch back in immediate fear, his ‘gaydar’ reading spiking.

  “Hahaha! Just kidding.” Sal thought he heard an incredibly quiet ‘or not’ from the bizarre man but kept that to himself. “Myself? Well, if you didn’t pick up on it already, I’m sick of the Doctrine. I’ve killed so many for that husk of a leader, and he wants to throw it down the drain. In his mind, the only man who deserves to rule the galaxy is himself, and he refuses to even consider that anyone else could be stronger. I think that’s a spit in the face to the entire ideology of Heaven’s Doctrine, so I’m going to finish my own deal with Ten-Tri. Thinking of making my own version, maybe with blackjack and hookers.” Mikhail chuckled. “No, I will ensure that the one leading the galaxy will be strong, not some corpse hiding himself away. Someone… like me.”

  Sal scowled at the man, any previous admiration fading, “Huh, I thought you might be different from the rest of these marauders, but it seems I was mistaken.”

  “Ah, come now Sal. Trust me, I’ll make a bright future for all of us. In my new world, it will be the strength of ideals that will pave the way. There will be no more Josiah Dexters or Captain Curtins or Jade Emperors – those who bow down and break under the their own weakness will be the ones who will be wiped clean from this galaxy. So fear not, men like you and me, those who live and die for their beliefs will succeed. And the others? Those who cannot live by their own strength? They will face their justice soon enough.”

  Sal sneered at the fanatic’s words. He had just about enough of self-reliance for one lifetime, but he kept that to himself. As much as he hated it, continuing to disagree vehemently with the incredibly dangerous madman carrying him was a good way to die.

  “And the Ten-Triumphs? What’s their deal?”

  “I’ve convinced a lot of the envoys here to let me go back with them, alongside those loyal to my clan. I’ll start out small, help add a bit of human culture to their society. When they’re ready, I’ll help them take bites out of the Doctrine, one system at a time. Still, there are others from their faction still blindly thinking the Doctrine are here to confirm a new alliance. They will be sorely mistaken.” He sighed wistfully, as if mass murder and conquest were something on a to-do list he had forgotten.

  “Still, I wonder what Paradise is doing exactly. I’d love to know, wouldn’t you?”

  With those jinxed words, a new message, hijacked throughout the speaker system, began. Sal couldn’t quite place the voice, but it seemed familiar, albeit in a different tone from how he remembered it.

  “Attention, Beholders and Folgeres of Utopia. The time has come for our journey, the one to remove all impurities from this system, and to lead the way to a brighter future. As your Praecursori, I will lead us to glory. In less than an hour, our combined efforts will tear all the demons and false souls through the dark void, and our souls will be protected. Protect the engines until they are charged to their limits and beyond. Glory to us, we will reach the true Paradise!”

  Mikhail stopped for a second, Sal hanging loosely from his back for a moment. Then the clanlord raised his head, eyes wide in disbelief. He spewed forth a torrent of swears and curses in his natural tongue that Sal could only catch a few of. He calmed down just enough to speak English, “Those idiots! They can’t be serious – overloading both engines? No, those bastards are going to try and S-Jump everyone, no everything in the goddamn fleet without any protection! They’re trying to turn us into a flotilla of goddamn vegetables!”